Officials Not Taking Security Lightly in County Classrooms

At Thousand Oaks High School, a security guard in a green golf cart prowls the campus looking for possible trouble. In Simi Valley, police dogs now sniff lockers in random drug searches once a year. And in Oxnard, classroom weapons checks are conducted daily by school officials wielding hand-held metal detectors.

Safety efforts are as common as No. 2 pencils in Ventura County’s classrooms--with good reason and good results.

The rationale, educators say, is a well-worn truism: Students cannot learn if they are not safe.

Sounds simple enough. But, in actuality, school safety in Ventura County is an intricately woven cloth of compassionate prevention and hard-nosed enforcement.

To keep students secure from Ojai to Oak Park and Santa Paula to Simi Valley, teachers and administrators intertwine peer mediation and on-campus police officers, character education and drug-sniffing dogs, intervention programs for difficult youths and zero tolerance for weapons, drugs and alcohol.

It’s all done to shield youngsters from locker theft, schoolyard bullying, lunch-line fights and more serious offenses including rape, assault and homicide.

“Safety is highly important,” said Oak Park schools Supt. Marilyn Lippiatt. “It’s probably one of the most important guarantees we can give students and parents--that we provide a safe learning environment.”

Safety is a priority with parents, who often list good schools and safe cities as this county’s strongest selling points.

So when campus violence strikes, it does so with the sting of a slap. A few violent incidents shatter the serenity of school safety, leaving students stunned and families frightened.

* In Simi Valley, that incident was the stabbing death of 14-year-old Chad Hubbard at a middle school three years ago. A 17-year-old football player had been stabbed to death while walking home from Ventura High a year earlier.

* In Thousand Oaks, the defining moment was a racially tinged brawl at a neighborhood park that left two football players recovering from gunshot wounds. Years earlier in Oxnard, a gang member shot a rival to death in front of Channel Islands High School as classes ended for the day.

* As recently as last month, rumors of a gang rumble alarmed Ventura High School administrators enough to call police to campus for three days.

Educators say such headline-grabbing occurrences are the exception to the school safety rule--daily incidents of enforcement and programs of prevention that routinely keep pupils out of harm’s way.

By most accounts, students sitting in classrooms across the county feel safer--and are safer--than their peers in the rest of California.

They experience fewer assaults with a deadly weapon, robberies and homicides than students statewide, according to a recent state study, the first since the 1988-89 school year. Polled by The Times over the summer of 1995, 92% of county middle- and high-schoolers said they feel secure at school.

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But the fabric of safety has some frays. Ventura County pupils are more likely to be beaten up, sexually assaulted and busted for drugs, alcohol and weapons than students statewide, the report found.

“If you hang out with people you know, you feel safe,” said Amy Streicher, 17, a Thousand Oaks High senior, at a juice bar after school on a balmy Friday. “I guess you kind of take safety for granted here.”

Added her friend Rod White, 21, a former Thousand Oaks student now at Moorpark College: “I’ve had friends who went to school in Bakersfield. I’ve had friends who went to school in Compton. Compared to what they dealt with, we’re little pansies.”

Ask a student at Moorpark’s Mesa Verde Middle School or Ventura High and the answer rarely varies: Yes, my school is safe. Probe deeper and the student can also point out who drinks, who gangbangs and who grows marijuana in the Arroyo Simi.

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Many students in the county and the country report that the most frequent breaches of school safety are bullying behaviors--name calling, pushing and the occasional fight, said Michael Furlong, an education professor at UC Santa Barbara.

“Schools are about the safest public places people can imagine,” said Furlong, a former school counselor who has studied school safety for more than a decade. “I think that ought to be comforting to parents. At the same time, we hold schools to a higher standard. Parents think nothing should happen to their children at school, and they have a right to think that.”

To ensure that higher standard, educators have turned to more and more stringent methods over the last five years. The reason? Even though the number of crimes committed on county campuses hasn’t grown significantly, the severity of the incidents has.

In many school districts, students who bring even a toy gun to school face a suspension or an expulsion. In Simi Valley schools, police dogs sniff lockers on campus for contraband as a training exercise. Most districts regulate what students can wear--banning beepers and some even requiring uniforms.

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But some critics think those tactics are overkill. Turning schools into police states is a violation of students’ civil liberties and a waste of scarce school district dollars, they contend.

More violence in communities, educators counter, cries out for more discipline and deterrence. Thus the mushrooming of enforcement and prevention programs. In the last half-decade, expulsions soared. The numbers are double those of five years ago.

“We haven’t had any major incidents, but we can’t be naive,” said Mike Johnson, principal of Anacapa Middle School in Ventura. “You can’t ever act like things are going so well that we don’t have to be vigilant. We watch them like hawks.”

The violent incidents that do occur--particularly Hubbard’s death--are painful reminders of the safety mission.

“I think all those incidents raised awareness that violence doesn’t just happen someplace else,” said Charles Weis, the county superintendent of schools. “I think we realized that every place has the potential for drug use and violence because our schools are made up of humans, and humans have the potential for that.”

Quick Responses

The reaction to recent gang tensions at Ventura High School dramatizes how quickly officials can move when they sense trouble.

When administrators got wind of a possible showdown between two groups of students, they called police, who quickly stationed themselves around campus before a recent four-day vacation.

The incident alarmed some parents, at least two of whom withdrew their children from the school. But students appeared unperturbed by it all. A number of them complained they were more annoyed by the police handing out jaywalking and smoking tickets than they were scared.

“Nobody was afraid,” junior Amelia McCormick said. “We were just annoyed at the cops hassling everybody and asking for their names.”

Experience has taught administrators to act quickly to keep problems from escalating, said Principal Hank Robertson.

“There was a potential situation,” he said. “We wanted to bring in high visibility and stop the people who wanted to bring it about.”

Although some may call the enforcement measures harsh, educators say such tactics are effective. Fillmore schools Supt. Mario Contini is among them. From his desk at Fillmore Unified School District headquarters, Contini pulls out a gun--actually a cigarette lighter that bears more than a slight resemblance to a real derringer.

He wields the black plastic gun--confiscated from a student who was disciplined--as a reminder of the district’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons. He shows it to pupils to emphasize the point that bringing any weapon--play or real--to school means suspension or expulsion. Period.

“It’s not how fancy-schmancy your [safety] plan is, but how clear it is and how consistent it is,” Contini said. “So we’re absolutely clear with kids. ‘You are not allowed to have anything like this on campus. Somebody might mistake it for real, and you’d be dead.’ ”

That message seems to be getting through.

In the last three semesters, expulsions for weapons possession in Fillmore have plummeted from 13 to three to zero this semester.

But this kind of no-exceptions enforcement concerns some parents and teachers.

Simi Valley school trustee Carla Kurachi is among them. Her own district has a zero-tolerance policy, and her own son nearly fell victim to it.

Two years ago, her son Scott was almost suspended for carrying to school a black-and-silver gun that shot out a red banner reading “BANG.” Saying the principal was too zealously enforcing zero-tolerance, Kurachi protested that the punishment did not fit the crime. The principal backed down.

“When we lose all common sense, that’s when it does go too far,” Kurachi said. “When we suspend a girl in kindergarten for bringing a pink squirt gun in, when we suspend a second-grader for bringing a green squirt gun in his backpack and a one-inch GI Joe gun to school, that’s when we go too far.”

In Simi Valley, enforcement also takes a furry form, in the shape of 10 German shepherds that occasionally scout for drugs.

Not quite two years ago, trustees voted to allow the dogs--borrowed from law enforcement agencies--to nose around middle and high school campuses as a training exercise, said Kathy Scroggin, director of secondary education. The dogs first sniffed at the middle and high schools last spring.

Students are warned that the dogs will snoop, but they are not told when.

At Royal High School, the canines roamed the campus while students were in class. Accompanied by a police officer and a school administrator, they trotted from painted metal locker to painted metal locker in pursuit of pot. When the dogs smelled a “hit,” Principal Doug Huckaby scribbled down the locker number.

Later, Huckaby stood by as students opened their lockers. Most of the hits turned out to be false alarms, he said. But the search did yield one bust: a student’s backpack stash of pot.

“The students accept the dogs,” said Scroggin, who was Simi Valley High’s principal until this year. “I won’t tell you they were all happy about it, but they accepted it.”

Count Simi Valley High senior Aubri Webb in the not-happy-about-it category.

“I think it’s an invasion of privacy and not necessary,” said 16-year-old Aubri. “They don’t really show anything, except when people are stupid enough to leave drugs in their locker.”

Besides, added Aubri: “Just the idea of looking out your classroom window and seeing dogs sniffing your locker is a little unsettling.”

When Supt. Bill Studt started pushing for metal detectors at the five Oxnard high school campuses, some educators had their doubts.

“I think we all thought, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” said John Triolo, principal of Channel Islands High School. “As I recall, people said everyone’s going to think it’s a prison, we’re making random searches of kids, but Studt had his convictions.”

Random searches began at all five campuses. While times may vary, most schools have searches at least once a day in a randomly selected classroom. Administrators sweep hand-held metal detectors over students and their backpacks searching for weapons.

Although it may be a nuisance, some students have become familiar with the searches and say they want them.

“It’s probably a good idea to have them so kids are safe and you don’t have shootings or stabbings,” said Oxnard High School sophomore Danny Pena, 16. “They’re doing more good than bad.”

To fight crime, schools have also turned to the police.

The Oxnard Union High School District became the first in the county to propose stationing police at each campus.

Right now, Oxnard Police Officer Mike Day cruises the perimeter of two Oxnard schools, watching for gang activity and class cutters, whom he escorts right back to school.

“Kids come up to you and say there’s going to be a fight, and we find out, and it gets canceled,” Day said. “If they see that law enforcement isn’t just an entity out to get them, they’ll talk to you.”

In Ventura schools, police show parents what to look for if they suspect their kids are into drugs, alcohol or gangs.

While slides of marijuana leaves, bongs, needles and crack flash on the auditorium screen at Buena High School, Det. Al Davis explains the characteristic behaviors of drug users.

“I didn’t know I was so dumb,” said Pegge Davis, a mother of three Buena graduates, after a recent presentation. “There was nothing like this when my kids were going to school.”

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A green golf cart labeled LANCER SUPERVISION steers the road of enforcement at Thousand Oaks High School, where security guard Marilynn Slutske bumps around campus in search of cigarette smokers and circling students (a warning sign of an impending fight).

With 58 acres to cover and about 2,300 students to track, the wiry supervisor with elaborately lacquered fingernails said the cart makes her job easier. At 7 mph, Slutske roams the school’s parking lots and perimeter with a watchful eye for wrongdoing.

“This is how I catch ‘em,” she confided, zipping toward a huddled, suspiciously smoky clump of seniors. “They don’t see me fast enough.”

She calls out, “I saw you. You’re a little too late putting out that cigarette.”

The groans of “Awww, Mrs. Slutske” subside as the security guard hands out a detention slip.

Yet the safety war isn’t won by enforcement alone, said county schools Supt. Weis. “All of these problem behaviors are symptoms of other problems,” he said. “We need to prevent violence by working on the root causes of those behaviors.”

That’s where DARE comes in.

In an eighth-grade classroom at Moorpark’s Mesa Verde Middle School, Senior Sheriff’s Deputy Alberto Miramontes passes around a pack of Camels and an open pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco.

“Man, stinks like prunes!” exclaims a boy, holding the chew at arm’s length.

“What I don’t understand,” says Miramontes, his voice rising above the middle-school chatter, “is how people put this in their bodies when it says on the package that it’s bad for you.”

Miramontes is one of Ventura County’s DARE officers, leading the charge against alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse in language kids understand.

His sense of humor and honest manner make him a hit with his pupils.

“I think a lot of kids have parents who don’t understand how to talk to their kids about drugs,” said Dylan Taylor, 13. “And you can hear the warnings and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll never do that,’ but this program teaches us how serious drugs are.”

A Jury of Their Peers

Prevention looks a little different at Oxnard High School, where Teen Court is in session.

It is the same chalkboard, desks and chairs of any classroom setting, but this one also has a volunteer judge in a long black robe listening as a teen explains why she stole some clothes from local department stores. To her left sit six teen jurors.

The straight-A student breaks down in tears recounting how she embarrassed her mother and lost her after-school privileges. Her mother also cries on the stand explaining how she didn’t raise her daughter to be a thief.

This is no mock court, but a real program between the schools and the county probation department. For the defendants, the punishment the jury metes out must be followed.

“I think the students know their vernacular, and they can probably tell when they’re lying . . . better than the adults,” said Ronald G. Harrington, an attorney who serves as one of Teen Court’s volunteer judges.

Once they have reached a verdict in a separate room, a student bailiff with a hoop earring in his right ear leads the jurors back to court. Believing the girl feels remorse, the jury sentences her to write a letter of apology to her mother. “She got off so easy,” someone in the audience whispers.

At Rio Del Valle Junior High School, one of the few Ventura County schools with uniforms, prevention is a head-to-toe matter.

El Rio parents demanded uniforms and got them last fall. Out went baggy jeans and in came white collared shirts and dark slacks and skirts.

With a long-standing rivalry between Oxnard and El Rio gangs, parents feared that their kids could be mistaken for gang members.

“I think uniforms brought out a safer ambience,” said school Principal Shirley Herrera-Perez.

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To keep students from getting into trouble, some school districts also have placed a strong emphasis on basic ethics. At Supt. Joseph Spirito’s urging, all Ventura public schools strive to promote core values--honesty, respect and kindness--and to laud students for showing those traits.

On a sunny day at Anacapa Middle School, the rewards for good behavior are tangible. Over the the school’s public address system, Cynthia Dillon, assistant principal, calls out the names of students who have won prizes for demonstrating the character trait of the month: respect.

Sixth-grader Oscar Carillo wins a package of gummy bears after demonstrating respect, a trait he sheepishly defines as “listening to your teachers and doing your homework and clearing your room.”

Balancing Resources

Principals believe that encouraging good behavior makes kids less likely to fight or join gangs.

“It’s not something you can quantify,” said Principal Mike Johnson. “It’s a feeling. It’s an atmosphere.”

Yet educators grapple with the amount of resources devoted to safety: Could the money sunk into prevention and enforcement be better spent on paring class size, buying books or repairing crumbling buildings? And don’t some of the more extreme enforcement measures lean toward the authoritarian?

“It is hard trying to find a balance,” said Kurachi, the Simi Valley trustee. “How far do you go, and at what cost? What kind of an atmosphere are you creating?”

Simi Valley High senior Aubri said many students wonder how much security is too much. But, she notes, teens only notice intrusive security measures while overlooking day-to-day supervision.

“It’s not my personal opinion, but some people compare school drug searches with concentration camps,” she said. “We’re barred off, not allowed to leave campus. There are guards watching the gates. Bringing dogs sniffing for drugs on campus, that’s basically accusing students of already having them.”

In this cost-benefit analysis, Supt. Weis believes safety should win.

“If anything good can come of [Chad Hubbard’s death], I think the reason he died was to remind us to never, never become complacent about the safety of our children. . . . We can’t let up,” he said.

Kate Folmar is a Times staff writer and Regina Hong is a correspondent.

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School Expulsion Rates

Expelling students involved in fights, robberies, drug or alcohol use and weapons possession is one of the many methods used to keep students safe. The advent of zero tolerance for weapons policies caused expulsions in the county’s middle and high schools to shoot up, peaking two years ago. That spike has begun to taper off. The chart does not list two elementary school districts that had no expulsions over the past five years: Mesa Union and Mupu.

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District 1991-92 92-93 93-94 94-95 95-96 Briggs Elementary 1 0 2 0 0 Conejo Valley Unified 24 22 33 35 41 Fillmore Unified 5 4 10 5 17 Moorpark Unified 1 1 1 n/a n/a Oak Park 2 1 8 6 4 Ocean View 0 0 2 0 0 Ojai Unified 0 0 7 8 8 Oxnard Elementary 3 10 8 6 3 Oxnard Union High 38 23 50 42 36 Pleasant Valley Elementary 10 3 4 7 15 Rio Elementary 0 3 5 3 5 Santa Paula Elementary 0 3 10 24 7 Santa Paula Union High 4 8 16 4 6 Simi Valley Unified n/a 16 20 18 16 Somis Union 0 0 1 0 0 Ventura Unified 1 22 54 83 38 TOTALS 89 116 231 241 196

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Source: School district records